Each year at around the same time Apple revises it’s iPhones, secrecy ensues prior to their launch. However, with the launch of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus very little was left to imagination. Apple has solved some of the basic problems surrounding the iPhones in the past, while adding some new tricks. And, while the removal of the headphone jack seemed to be a problem during the launch, no one seems to be complaining now.

Design

Apple has made subtle changes to the design of the iPhone 7, for starters the edges are more rounded off and comfortable to hold. The antenna lines on the back of the phone have been moved out of sight, and if you get either the black or jet black colour the antenna lines are nearly invisible.

The addition of the Jet-black colour and the regular black colour has been appreciated by everyone. However, the black color due to it’s matte finish is extremely slippery and the jet-black iPhone is prone to scratches and damage. The slight change in the camera’s position and the size of the camera lens on the back is attractive to some, while ugly to others. Apple refuses to make the camera flush since the iPhone 6, and with the iPhone 7 it seems to have grown bigger and outward.

Build Quality

Apple has made interesting changes to the phone to make the iPhone 7 water-resistant with an iP67 rating. The whole insides of the iPhone 7 are lined with a rubberized seal, including a nano coating on the electronics.

Although several tests have shown that the iPhone 7 has a far better water resistance than Samsung’s iP68 on their phones. The removal of the headphone jack and rubber lining of several of the iPhone’s ingress points (including a physical home button) has also made this possible. The Sim Card tray too, now, comes with a tiny rubber gasket.

The removal of a physical home button and the replacement with a touch glass surface, helps with the water resistance and also improves the life of the home button. While the back remains a solid aluminium shell, reinforced to avoid any bending issues, the front is speculated to be Gorilla Glass 5. The rear camera lens has a sapphire glass composite, which essentially has a layer of sapphire towards the outside.

Hardware

Apple has upped the hardware on the iPhone 7 considerably. Starting with a much faster chipset A10 Fusion Quad Core CPU and Hexa Core GPU. The iPhone 7 gets 2 GB of RAM along with large storage options of 32 GB , 128 GB and 256 GB.

The iPhone 7 camera has been improved with a new lens structure, wider f1.8 aperture OIS and wide colour capture. The inbuilt audio gets an upgrade to stereo speakers, and digital out via lightning and the battery is now a larger 1960 mAh unit.

The home button has been replaced by a pressure sensitive glass panel, much like 3D touch, it senses the amount of force applied and vibrates to give feedback to your actions.

Performance

The iPhone is a fantastic example that more RAM does not equal more performance. At a time where most major manufacturers are shifting towards 4GB and some manufacturers are shifting towards 6 GB RAM in their phones, the Apple iPhone 7 comes with just 2 GB of RAM. A big far cry from industry expectations and norms. The Apple iPhone 7 is extremely quick to respond to actions and UI commands.

Compute times are incredibly reduced and there is no lag between app launches and swiping between applications. The benchmark scores on the iPhone 7 surpass many Android flagships, and so does day to day performance. Expect excellent gaming graphics and top tier responsiveness from the iPhone 7. The performance surpasses that of even the iPad Pro which is considered a very solid performer. Antutu score of the iPhone 7 is consistently above 174000 which is much higher than even the Note 7.

Display

Adding a wide color gamut the iPhone 7’s display is able to output cinema standard colours.

Our biggest gripe, however, has to be the lack of a better resolution display, and with a 1334 × 750 px display on the iPhone 7 we are truly disappointed. The resolution is far more noticeable when you have used a 2K display, or even a 1080p display.

In 2015 Sony managed a 4K display into a smartphone. we expected at least a 1920 x 1080 px display in the new iPhone 7. This display is an LCD IPS display, not AMOLED as per expectations everyone had.

iPhone 7’s display has excellent viewing angles and is 25% more bright when compared to the iPhone 6s. The display still includes their 3D touch technology which allows you to initiate a contextual menu if you hard press on the screen. This is becoming more and more prominent and usable in iOS 10.

Multimedia and Gaming

The multimedia experience is impressive on the iPhone 7, with the wide colour display watching videos is excellent. The stereo Speakers deliver more than 100 db of audio output which is the highest in this category. One of the speakers on the iPhone 7 is forward firing and that helps in watching those endless Vines or Facebook videos.

Gaming is excellent as has been with each iPhone, Games are optimized well to work on iOS and that is exactly the case with the iPhone 7. With a mix of high end gaming performance on the chipset along with good audio from the speakers and responsive feedback from the touchscreen, you will like the gaming experience a lot. The new six core GPU handles graphics with ease and delivers an extremely smooth gaming experience.

The removal of the 3.5 mm headphone jack will be a big impact for those with a good collection of analogue headphones, however, the improved battery life means that you will seldom need to charge your iPhone while listening to music. If you want to use analogue headphones using the included lightning to 3.5 mm adapter is the only resolve for now. Lightning headphones have already existed and a lot of companies will be releasing headphones with that capability in the coming months.

Audio though the lightning port can be pushed in high resolution and several streaming apps will support the output. Music is extremely well balanced and the volumes can be cranked yup high without loss to quality, which will be appreciated by serious audiophiles.

Apple wants you to go the bluetooth route, and we are not convinced. The included lightning EarPods sound pretty similar to previous variants, and still sound tinny are poor constructed and they simply do not stay in the ear. The removal of the 3.5 mm headphone jack seems pre-mature but also necessary if Apple is to be believed.

Camera

The iPhone 7 gets an improved camera combination as well, with a 12 MP optical stabalization equipped main camera and a 7 MP front camera. The rear camera gets an ƒ/1.8 aperture, and an improved six-element lens, now that you can see the images on the screen the camera shoots with a wide color capture. The LED flash is also extremely bright with quad LED array for a more accurate flash colour, and it works really well, with a firing range of upto 10 feet. Assisting the low light performance the ƒ/1.8 aperture mixed with OIS lets you expose for a longer period and get a better image without any shake.

The camera shoots video upto 4k resolution, although a capacity of 128 GB or 256 GB is recommended for budding iPhone video enthusiasts as the video file sizes are massive. The video comes out impressive with the wide color capture.

You also get 120fps slow mo for 1080p video and 240fps slow-mo for 720p video. The camera and photos app in iOS 10 works well to display live images, and organise all your image collections making them easy to find. The new search options let you search by location, with friends and by time when they were clicked.

The front 7 MP camera gets good wide colour selfies for a more natural looking image. The retina flash feature is now brighter and allows for some light fill. The display is 25% brighter on iPhone 7, hence you get a brighter flash for selfies. The camera lens on the front camera is also wider than before so you can fill more people in your pictures.

iOS 10 and iCloud

One of the biggest changes to hit iPhones this year has been iOS 10, and while iOS 10 is not limited to iPhone 7, the usability is far more improved. The menus and texts are easier to read and navigate. You also have more options in control centre, and finally iOS gets widgets. However, the new interface is far more optimised and smoother. Apps load quicker and multitasking is far more efficient. More 3D touch features are available, and at the least you can 3D touch on any app, even those which don’t support it to share the app with your friends via email or iMessage. iOS 10 also syncs WhatsApp and Skype like VOIP and IM services with deep linking so your contacts app allows you to initiate WhatsApp calls and Skype calls directly.

You also get the WhatsApp call history in your main call history. Moreover, now when you are on a WhatsApp call, and you get a regular call, it rings in the background and does not disconnect ( or hold ) the WhatsApp call.

Apart from these aesthetic changes, Apple also brings more deep integration of Home, with smart connected devices that now Siri can operate for you. So if you have supported hardware like a thermostat or Philips Hue lighting you can simply ask Siri to control it.

Siri is far more responsive and understands a whole new set of accents, including the Indian accent, much better. With iCloud sync you can now co-share documents and spreadsheets via iCloud with others who can operate without owning any Apple devices, managing the files on a browser online. Big improvements on speed and battery life thanks to lowering the footprint of services and preferences.make the iOS 10 experience great. However a lot of features are still missing and sharing is still properly restricted to Air Drop or third party apps like Send Anywhere.

Networks and Battery

Thanks to new network radios provided by Intel, network strength is far more improved and there is less switching between 4G and 3G for a better much more improved network performance, in comparison to the iPhone 6s the iPhone 7 delivers far better network and call quality. Thanks to a mix of the new A10 fusion chipset with two little cores and the major improvements on iOS 10 along with a larger sized battery.

The iPhone 7 has significant battery life improvements, thanks to a large battery, iOS tweaks along with the big little architecture on the new chips. With heavy usage that includes phone calls, video recording, IM, editing and general browsing of the internet, mixed with gaming and video playback the iPhone 6s would require a charge by 3 pm if the start time was around 8 am. Now in a real life scenario the day completes with 20% left in the charge. This is significant and will change the usage case scenarios for a lot of people. The charging is still restricted to the lightning port, and if you want a quicker charge you will need to buy yourself a 12 W Apple iPad adapter, which the iPhone 7 supports natively.

iPhone 7

Battery Life (non stop)

Call Time 4G

6-7 Hours

Internet

8 Hours

Video

10 Hours

Gaming

5 Hours

Music

18 hours

Conclusion

On the outset, the iPhone 7 appears not to be a major upgrade, the reality is far from it. Apart from all the Jet Black and matte black goodness of the antenna hiding new colour, the iPhone 7 also improves heavily on many other aspects. The phone is very well sealed and water resistant, to the extent of being considered waterproof. The build quality is much more improved, and the performance is best in class.

The camera has improved from previous generations and DXO mark grades it extremely high among already available phones. You will find improvements on audio quality, battery life, network, call quality and the new home button.

The iPhone 7 is a worthy upgrade, and a good one at that, but we still want a better display and to be able to charge the phone while listening to music.

But, we still want a better display and to be able to charge the phone while listening to music.
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The Good

Improved Performance
Battery Life
Camera
iOS 10
Wide Color Gamut

The Bad

No 3.5 mm Audio Jack
Pricey in India
No High-Resolution Display

Expert Review

User Review

Rate Here

Build Quality

8.9

7.8

Design and Aesthetics

9.0

7.7

Daily Performance

9.3

8.0

Display

8.0

7.8

Audio and Multimedia

9.2

8.0

Cameras

9.0

8.0

Network Performance

9.0

8.0

Battery Life

9.2

8.1

Features

8.0

8.1

Price Segment

7.0

6.2

Conclusion

A major overhaul to the already popular iPhone, the iPhone 7 improves mostly every aspect of the iPhone 6s, adding new water-resistance capabilities.